Samburu Elephants

After many trips to Kenya and Samburu we finally got to see the Ewaso Ng’iro with water in it.

An added bonus was watching the elephants daily trek from the surrounding foothills down to the river in the morning and then back into the foothills in the evening.

I had hoped to one day get a group of elephants swimming across this river, but even though there had been a lot of rain earlier in the year the river was still low enough for the elephants to walk across.

What cannot be seen is there is another elephant group already on the bank that the group in the water are walking towards.

The group had almost reached the bank, but much mud to be negotiated first and the littlest of the elephants were certainly finding it heavy going, the other herd is still off stage but watching this group closely.

While the female and younger elephants climbed onto the bank off to the right, the bull that had just crossed the river walked left towards a large bull that was already on the bank, our guide warning as it did so that it was most likely that there would be a confrontation between the 2 bulls.

The 2 bulls duly faced off to each other, the bull on the right clearly claiming the bank/territory as his, whilst the group of females hurried off to the left out of the way of the 2 males coming together. what was originally an incredibly peaceful scene became quite charged and filled with the trumpeting of the now distressed females

The clash when it came was tremendous, the power of the animals and the intent behind the charge evident in the cloud of dust propelled off the body of the charging elephant on impact.